


A Little Longer

by fightforyourwrite



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Morning After, Morning Cuddles, Morning Kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 04:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11570217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightforyourwrite/pseuds/fightforyourwrite
Summary: Five dates in and Mikasa Ackerman is waking up in Jean Kirschtein's bed.





	A Little Longer

Opening my eyes in a dark, unknown room doesn’t shock me. I knew exactly where I would end up after last night.

Though, I’ll admit that I’m a little jostled from the night’s sleep. My body misses the memory foam mattress all the way back in my room, as well as my scratchier sheets.

I think waking up in an unfamiliar bed is glamorized too much. Movies and books don’t necessarily mention the feeling your back gets when you sleep on an unfamiliar mattress, or the fact that you didn’t follow your regular nightly routine leaves you feeling unbalanced in the morning.

When I wake up on this morning, it’s still quite dark outside. My mind is too worn down by drowsiness to feel anything else.

I roll on the bed until I’m on my stomach and I feel something bump my shoulder.

Five dates in and now I’m waking up in Jean Kirschtein’s bed.

Even after I bump his shoulder, Jean doesn’t wake. However, he does seem to snuggle into his pillow a little more.

I’ve never been a morning person and today is no exception.

I feel like I have to rest beside Jean for another three hours before I feel satisfied and fully rested.

That doesn’t seem like the worst thing to do. The idea of staying here and laying with Jean sounds like a lovely way to spend the next few hours.

My temptation beckons me and I reach over to drape my arm across his bare back. My gut instinct tells me to get closer to him, so I move to him and press my lips against his cheek.

I wait and see if doing that gets a different reaction out of him. I wonder if Jean can feel me, and for a second, I think he doesn’t.

But soon, Jean lets out a hum.

It turns out, he does.

I blink a few times and rub my hands against my tired eyes. I roll onto my back, sit up, and look around Jean’s bedspace for a clock.

I can’t seem to find one, so I get off his bed in search for my pants from last night. My phone should still be in the pocket.

I look across the floor amongst the other discarded articles of clothing until I find my jeans. Like I had guessed, the phone is still inside and I pull it out to check the time.

**5:37**

It’s too early for anyone to be reasonably awake, unless of course, they’re beyond the socially acceptable levels of insanity.

Going back to sleep is the most logical choice my mind can rationalize for myself. I decide to go with that choice.

I do send a quick text to my roommates to feed my dog, since I’m sure that I won’t get home in time to do it myself.

Before I go back to rest beside Jean, I kneel down to the floor and grab his flannel shirt off the carpet. I push my arms through the sleeves and do up the first few buttons on the front.

Jean stirs a bit in bed. I turn back just as I’m finishing up the last button. I wonder if I’ve woken him for a second, but after a moment, he goes silent and still again.

I’m sure Jean won’t mind me using his bathroom. I just have to be quiet.

I’m slow as I make my way through his studio apartment. I’m as silent as I can be, even though I’m quite sure he doesn’t have any roommates that I can potentially wake up.

There are a lot of things occupying the space. Guitar, drafting tools, carton of Du Maurier's, school books, half-empty bottle of Canadian Rye, drawings of both building designs and abstract pictures tacked on the walls.

It’s an interesting set up. My foster mother always told me that you could tell a lot by a person by how they kept their living space.

I get the sense that Jean doesn’t have company over often. This barely seems like the place to entertain. He doesn’t have a lot of places to sit on, aside from some chairs and his bed.

I walk past Jean’s kitchenette and enter the bathroom.

I turn on the sink and splash some water into my face with my hands. For a second, I look around to see if he has anything I could properly wash up with.

There’s a bar of Irish Spring on the edge of the bathtub and some hand soap near the sink, but I don’t reach for it yet. I hold out hope that he has something else I can use.

Jean is very particular about his appearance, I’m sure he’s bound to have a bottle of something somewhere.

The mirror above the sink doubles as a cupboard. I pull back on the edge and let the entire door swing open to reveal everything inside.

On the interior shelves of the cupboard, I take note of what Jean has with him. Straight razor, shaving soap, something that looks like a belt, jars of pomade, grooming cream, combs, bottle of prescription medication that I don’t read the label of out of respect, stuff snagged from hotel rooms, shaving brush, and… lipstick?

Curious, I reach up and take what’s sure to be a tube of something Historia would wear, and pick it off the top shelf.

It won’t freak me out if this belongs to Jean. That’s the better possibility.

The other possibility, however, settles in my mind as I look at the shelf again. I feel around and find other things there. Eyelash curler, bobby pins, mascara.

“Don’t worry about that.”

I turn around and see Jean standing in the bathroom doorway. He’s wearing his trunks from last night.

I must’ve woken him.

“It was a long time ago,” he adds on, clearly referring to everything I’ve discovered on the top shelf.

“I uh... ” I put the tube of lipstick back. “Sorry.”

Jean shrugs and rubs sleep out of his eyes, “It’s fine.”

I want to change the subject, so I close the above sink cupboard quickly and ask, “Do you have any face wash?”

Jean nods points to a tube right beside his toothpaste, “There.”

I nod my head and grab the tube, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Jean says. He’s still tired. I can tell.

I decide say the first word that comes to my mind, “I wasn’t snooping, or anything. I swear.”

Jean lets out a laugh, “It’s alright.” He’s easy to make laugh, though, I always have trouble understanding why.

“You have a lot of pomade in here,” I comment. I’m unsure on how well I can keep this conversation going.

“Well, like you said, I got a lot of crap in my hair,” Jean comments. “A variety of crap, that is.”

I let out a hum, which he knows by now is the closest I can get myself to a chuckle.

“Hm, that’s funny.”

I open the tube of face wash and pour a dollop onto my hands. As I rub it between my palms, Jean speaks up.

“Hey, do you uh… wanna sleep for a bit or grab an early breakfast?”

“That depends. Do you know anywhere that’s open at this time?” I ask him.

“There’s a twenty-four hour diner down the street,” Jean tells me. “Cheapest pancakes you can get in town.”

“Pancakes... tempting,” I respond. I take a few more moments to think things through before finally saying, “Could use a bit more sleep though. How about later?”

Jean nods and smiles at me, “Sounds great. I’ll be in bed then, Mikasa.”

Before Jean leaves, he leans over to me, and I don’t shy away when he presses a kiss to my cheek. In fact, I feel myself leaning towards him a bit when I see him moving.

I feel like everything we have could be the start of something beautiful.

If I’m being honest, I really didn’t expect much when Historia decided to set me up with her old friend from her Summer Camp days.

I guess I accepted the offer for a reason. I’ve been seeing too much of Sasha and Historia’s love lives at home. They always have their partners stay the night, and the next morning, I’m usually stuck eating breakfast beside either Historia’s girlfriend, or that weird buzzcut dude Sasha keeps around.

I think I just needed to get out of that mold of _‘roommate you interact with the next morning,’_ just to be anything _but_ that.

It’s astounds me when I realize how different my life has been because of a simple _‘yes.’_

One yes brought me on a first date with a guy who spends his days telling people how to spell _‘Kirschtein’_ , which led to a second one, then a third, a fourth, a fifth.

Now I’m here.

Historia told me that the third date is the one where the two parties agree whether or not to consummate things. I considered her input carefully, but I found myself more comfortable waiting until the fifth before things could start feeling more serious.

In my opinion, the third date feels better suited for the first kiss. Jean kissed my cheek on our first, I think it’s a French thing. He also did the same on the second one.

Making him wait until the third for the first kiss felt right. I can’t rationalize something like that to myself, I can’t make sense of it anyhow. But it just did.

I finish washing my face with some stuff that smells like algae and rinse it off with cold tap water. I wipe my face dry before returning back to bed with Jean.

He’s resting on his stomach, leaning his cheek against his pillow.

When I join him, I settle myself by his side.

Jean is warm, and he smells like a mix of pomade and cigarette smoke. I feel my legs grazing his. I run my toe across his calf and he flexes it in response.

I feel him shifting a bit. Jean turns around and mutters a low, “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You took my shirt,” Jean comments, tugging on the collar of his flannel that I’m wearing.

“You’ll get it back, I promise,” I tell him.

I reach over to his hands and take them in mine. I run my thumb across his palms and fingers and realize just how calloused they feel.

No one ever explains relationships to you. You just kinda go for it, see what works, see what you want, and hope you can find someone just for you.

I don’t think anyone in this world knows exactly what they want until they find it. It doesn’t matter how many times they list their _‘wants and needs’_ in their head.

But I think when something good appears in front of you, something you find yourself drawn to and coming back to every time, your brain makes the choice to stay with it.

I know what I want right now.

I want to hold onto Jean’s hand because I see no reason not to. I want to sleep for a little more before heading back into the world. I want to rest with Jean a little bit longer.

That’s all.


End file.
